Free FREED (Angels and Gargoyles Book 2) by Brenda L. Harper Page A

should be wary of.”
    “Well, I’m definitely not the latter,” he said.
    “Then tell me why I should trust you.”
    He huffed a little as he again kicked at the ground. “Davida knew what you were from the beginning. She saw it when you were born, saw it again when you healed yourself of some childhood illness.”
    “I didn’t—”
    Dylan began to object, but then a memory niggled at the corners of her mind. A high fever. Sore throat. Achiness in her joints. She remembered the concern on Davida’s face, the fear that mingled there. And then she remembered a dream in which she was playing in the grass, a dream so intense that it couldn’t compare to anything before or after, except maybe the dream in which Lily walked with her.
    “Davida made contact with the resistance. I have connections with them.”
    “You work with Jimmy?”
    Stiles laughed. “No. Jimmy would never tolerate someone like me working with the resistance. He barely tolerates you.”
    Dylan buried her fingers in her pockets, her thoughts a whirlwind she couldn’t keep straight. “Demetria said they didn’t know I had gifts despite the fact that my appearance made her wonder…”
    “Your test was rigged.”
    “By who?”
    Stiles just shrugged. “I needed them to dump you out in the desert. I needed to watch over you, and I couldn’t do that if they figured out who—what—you are.”
    “But they all know now.”
    “They know because Lily has a connection with you. The moment you left the dome of Genero, she could sense you.” Stiles moved close to Dylan, his soft gray eyes studying her face so closely that she felt like he could see her every thought. Almost like Wyatt. “And Davida could read you, too. She sent out word.”
    “To you?”
    “To others she thought she could trust. But some of them work for Demetria.” He tilted his head a little. “I wasn’t the only gargoyle following you out there. That first night, the noise you heard? It was another.”
    “Another?”
    “The gargoyle that attacked you and Wyatt in the bookstore.”
    Dylan remembered. “The one that came after us later, too. The one that cut you?”
    Stiles nodded.
    “You saved us.” She turned slightly, her gaze falling to the leaves on the ground. Again she was trying to make sense of the whirlwind in her mind. “You said you needed me out of Genero. But why? Why do you want to protect me?”
    Stiles leaned back against the tree again, his hands trapped behind his body in a casual move that made him appear vulnerable. Such an illusion. “Gargoyles were sent here at the beginning of time to watch over the humans. It is our sole responsibility to make sure humans survive no matter what they do to one another, or what the angels or other creatures might do. Some of us take that very seriously. Others realize that what defines humanity has changed since we were first given our assignment.”
    “And you’re one of those.”
    Stiles studied her for moment. Again. “I have watched humans all my life. Watched them experience joy and love, watched them suffer grief and the pain of heartbreak.” He shook his head, his gray eyes softening. “Humans are amazing creatures, the things they experience, the lives they live. They fit a lot into a very small amount of time. I don’t know if I could live so much if my life were so short.”
    “But?”
    He smiled. “When you watch something for so long, you begin to see their failings. Humans are amazing creatures, but they have become petty, dark things. They allow their desire for material objects to get in the way of the things that really matter. It was that darker side to them that caused this war in the first place.”
    “How did the war start?” Dylan asked, remembering what Lily had told her, but curious if her words had been the truth or more lies.
    “Over something called oil,” Stiles said, unwittingly confirming Lily’s story. “But I think it went much deeper than that. I think humans had simply